Читать книгу Chata and Chinita - Laura Preston - Страница 9

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Upon the death of Mademoiselle La Croix, or rather perhaps from the time of her return to the hacienda after her ineffectual quest, Doña Feliz had virtually become the duenna of Herlinda. Not that such an office was formally recognized or required in the seclusion of Tres Hermanos, but it was nevertheless true that Herlinda had seldom found herself alone, even in the walled garden. Though she paced its narrow paths without companionship, she had been aware that her mother or Doña Feliz lingered near; and it was this consciousness that had steeled her outwardly, and forced her to restrain the passionate despair that under other circumstances would have burst forth to relieve the tension of mind and brain. When she at last roused from the apathy of despair, her days became periods of speechless agony, but sometimes at night, when she had believed that Feliz—who, since Carmen’s departure, had occupied the adjacent room—was asleep, for a few brief moments she had yielded to the demands of her grief, and given way to sobs and tears, to throw herself finally prostrate before the little altar, where she kept the lamp constantly burning before the Mother of Sorrows. Thence Feliz at times had raised her, and led her to her bed,—chill, unresisting, more dead than alive, yet putting aside the arm that would have supported her, and by mute gestures entreating to be left to her misery.

Fortunately for her reason, there were times when in utter exhaustion Herlinda had slept heavily and awoke refreshed,—and this had occurred a night or two after she had learned, by a few decisive words from her mother, of her imminent removal from Tres Hermanos. She had retired early, and awoke to find the soft and brilliant moonlight flooding her chamber. Every article in the room was visible; their shadows fell black upon the tiled floor, and the lamp before the altar burned pale. A profound stillness reigned. Herlinda raised herself on her pillow, and looked around her. The scene was weird and ghostly, and she presently became aware that she was utterly alone. She listened intently,—not the echo of a breath from the next room. Her heart leaped; for a moment its pulsations perplexed her; another, and she had moved noiselessly from her bed and crossed the room. She glanced into that adjoining. That too was flooded in moonlight, which shone full upon the bed. Yes, it was empty. Doña Feliz had doubtless been called to some sick person; she had left Herlinda sleeping, thinking that at that hour of the night there could be no danger in leaving her for a brief half hour alone.

In an instant these thoughts darted through Herlinda’s mind, followed by a project that of late she had much dwelt upon, but had believed impossible of realization. With trembling hands she took from her wardrobe a dress of some soft dark stuff, and a black and gray reboso, and put them on. Without pausing a moment for thought that might deter her, she glided from the room, crossed the corridor, and descended the stairs, taking the same direction in which Ashley had gone to his death. She paused too at the gate, to do as he had done; for she touched the sleeping Pedro lightly upon the shoulder, at the same instant uttering his name.

The man started from his sleep affrighted,—too much affrighted to cry out; for like most haciendas, Tres Hermanos had its ghost. From time to time the apparition of a weeping woman was seen by those about to die. Had she come to him now? His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth; he shook in every limb. The moonlight shone full in the court, but the archway was in shade: who or what was this that stood beside him, extending a white arm from its dark robes, and touching him with one slight finger? A repetition of his name restored him to his senses, and he staggered to his feet, muttering, “Señorita! My Señorita, for God’s sake why are you here? You will be seen! You will be recognized!”

“‘In the night all cats are gray,’” she answered, with one of those proverbs as natural to the lips of a Mexican as the breath they draw. “No one would distinguish me in this light from any of the servants; but still my words must be brief, for my absence from my room may be discovered. Pedro, I have a work to do; it has been in my mind all this time. You, you can help me!”

She clasped her hands; he thought she looked at the door, and the idea darted into his mind that she contemplated escape, or that she had a mad desire to throw herself upon her lover’s grave and die there.

“Niña! Niña, of my life!” he said imploringly, using the form of address one might employ to a child, or some dearly loved elder, still dependent. “Go back to your chamber, I beg and implore! How can I do anything for you? How can Pedro, so worthless, so vile, do anything?”

The adjectives he applied to himself were sincere enough, for Pedro had never ceased to reproach himself for his share in the tragedy which, in spite of Doña Isabel’s words, he had never really ceased to believe concerned Herlinda, though he had striven for his own peace of mind, as well as in loyalty to the Garcias, to affect a contrary opinion, until this moment, when his young mistress’s appearance and appeal rendered self-deception no longer possible. Again and again he reiterated, “What can the miserable Pedro do for you?”

Apparently with an instinct of concealment, Herlinda had crouched upon the stones, and as the man stood before her she raised her face and gazed at him with her dark eyes. How large they looked in the uncertain light! how the young face quivered and was convulsed, as her lips parted! Pedro, with an inward shrinking, expected her to demand of him the name of Ashley’s murderer; but the thought of vengeance, if it ever crossed her mind, was far from it at that moment. “Yes, yes, there is perhaps something you can do for me,” she said. “Men are able to do so much, while we poor women can only fold our hands, and wait and suffer. I thought differently once, though. John used to laugh at what he called our idle ways; he said women were made to act as well as men. But what can I do? What could any woman do in my place? Nothing! nothing! nothing!”

Pedro was silent. He knew well how powerless, what a mere chattel or toy, was a young woman of his people. It seemed, too, quite natural and right to him. In this particular case the mother was acting with incomparable severity, but she was within her right. Even while he pitied the child, it did not enter his mind to counsel her to combat her mother’s will. He only repeated mechanically, “What can I do? What would you have your servant do?”

“Not so hard a thing,” she said with a sob in her voice; “even a woman, had I one for my friend, could do this thing for me; and yet it is all I have to ask in the world. Just a little pity for my child, Pedro!” She rose to her feet suddenly, and spoke rapidly. “Pedro, they say that I was not truly married; they say my beautiful, golden-haired husband, my angel of light, deceived me. It is false, Pedro! all false! But they say the world will not believe me, and so I must go away; and my child, like an offspring of shame, must be born in secret, and I must submit. It will be taken from me, and I must submit. There is no help! no help!”

She spoke in a kind of frenzy, and her excitement communicated itself to Pedro. He understood, far better than she could, the motives of Doña Isabel; he did not condemn her, neither did he attempt to justify her to her daughter. He only muttered again in his stoical way, “What can I do?”

Herlinda accepted the words as they were meant, as an offer of devotion, of service. “Pedro, you can do much,” she said rapidly. “You can watch over my child. Years hence, when I come to ask it, you can give me news of it. Ah, they think when they take my child from me, it will be as dead to me; but Pedro,” she added in an eager whisper, “I have found what they will do. Never mind how I learned it. They will bring my child here,—here, where only the peasants will ask a few useless questions, where there will be no person of influence to interfere. Yes, it will be brought here, and—forgotten! But Pedro, promise me you will watch for it, you will protect it. Promise! promise! promise!”

Pedro was startled, but not incredulous. This would not be the first child that had been found at the hacienda doors, left to the charity of the señoras; more than one half-grown boy, of whose parents no one knew anything, loitered in the courts, and even the maid who served Doña Isabel was a foundling of this class.

“But how shall I know,” he stammered, after he had satisfied her with the promise she desired. “True enough, it may be brought here, but how shall I know?”

Herlinda scarcely heeded his words. She was busy in taking a small reliquary from her neck. It was square, made of pale blue silk, and in no way remarkable. “See, I will put this around its neck,” she said. “No one will dare remove a reliquary. There is a bit of the true cross in it. It will keep evil away; it will bring good fortune. The first day I wore it I met John; and” she added, nervously fingering the jewel at her ear, “take this, Pedro. The other I will put in the reliquary, with a prayer to San Federigo. When you see the strange child that will come here, look for these signs, and as you hope for mercy hereafter, guard the child that bears them.”

She had placed in his hand a flat earring of quaint filagree work, one of the marvels of rude and almost barbaric workmanship that the untaught goldsmiths of the haciendas produce. Pedro would have returned it to her, swearing by all he held sacred to do her will; but some sound had startled her. She slipped the reliquary into her bosom, drew her scarf around her, and glided away. He saw her pass the small doorway like a spectre. He could scarcely believe that she had been there at all, that she had actually spoken to him. He crossed himself as he lost sight of her, and looked in a dazed way at the earring in his palm.

“Would to God,” he muttered, “I had told Doña Isabel all the truth, as I meant to, when I went to her from the dead man’s side. Why did I not tell her plainly I knew her daughter Herlinda to be the woman Ashley had come here to meet,—would she have dared then to say she was not his wife? Fool that I was! I myself doubted. What, doubt that sweet angel! Beast! imbecile!” and Pedro flung his striped blanket from him with a gesture of disgust. “And now, what would be the use, though I should trumpet abroad the whole matter? No, my hour has passed. Doña Isabel must work her will; I will not fail her, for only by being true can I serve her daughter. But who knows?—Herlinda may be deceived; her fears may have turned her brain. Yet all the same I will keep this token;” and he looked at the earring reverently, then placed it in his wallet. Two days later, when she left Tres Hermanos and he saw its fellow in Herlinda’s ear, he caught the momentary glance in her dark eye, and stood transfixed.

Pedro Gomez hitherto had been a careless, idle, rollicking fellow; thenceforward he became grave, watchful, and crafty,—the change which, had there been keen observers near, all might have noticed in the outward man being as nothing to that from the specious fellow whom Ashley had found it an easy matter to bribe, to the conscience-stricken man who stood at the gates of the great hacienda of the Garcias, cognizant of its conflicting interests, and sworn to guard them; his crafty mind inclining to Doña Isabel and the cause she represented, his heart yearning over the erring daughter.